Revd. Carol Bates Licensed as Team Vicar for Church Wigan North West

Church Wigan is delighted to welcome the Revd Carol Bates, who has taken up the role of Team Vicar (Hub Leader) for Church Wigan North West.

Carol was licensed by Bishop Simon Robinson during a beautiful service at St Luke’s Church, Orrell, on Tuesday 20th October. We are thrilled to have Carol as part of the team and look forward with excitement to all that God has in store for her and the North West parish as they begin this new chapter together.

Carol was a teacher for 24 years. Her first teaching job was teaching missionary children in the Amazon jungle with Wycliffe Bible Translators.  Her final ten years of teaching was in Special Education working with students with severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning difficulties, in South East London schools.  Prior to training for ordination she was a Licensed Lay Reader at St Mildred’s Church, Lee and has been involved in Christian ministry since she was a teenager at St John’s with Holy Trinity, Deptford.  Carol trained for ordination at St Augustine’s College of Theology serving in church placements and her title curacy on estate, sub-urban and urban areas. The past 2 years she has served as Rector of a group of 8 rural churches in Kent.

Carol is married to Chris a retired London firefighter and mum to three children aged 25, 24 & 21 years. In her spare time she enjoys being with family and friends in whatever shape or form this takes – exercising, holidaying, eating, drinking, working, resting or playing. She also likes reading, singing and cultivating house plants.

Scroll through the photos below to catch a glimpse of the joy of the occasion: